Sunday, January 04, 2009

The Religion of Environmentalism

Michael Crichton passed away unexpectedly in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. Crichton was a story teller who gave us many good science-based tales like "Jurassic Park" and "Andromeda Strain" and created the TV show "ER". He also had a lot to say about environmentalism:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them. ...

We know from history that religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s.

Crichton said much more, which you should read by clicking on this link.

3 Comments:

He got a LOT of grief over those comments, too, as he would later ruefully relate to Charlie Rose. In fact, Rose himself took all this in with incredulity, demanding that his guest show fealty to the environmental 'religion' Rose, himself, believed without question.

Crichton stuck to his guns and, of course, he was right. Probably it's that kind of integrity that gave his writing such power.

Crichton is like the guy who discovers the Golden Gate bridge. It's a big deal except to the millions of people who already knew it was there. Sure anyone who opens their eyes and discovers the destruction of the natural world is well underway is going to think he discovered something new. New to him but not to the millions and millions of us who were already well aware of it.

This weekend I came across an anti-Tea Party booth which I walked up to to have a chat and open discussion. As I approached, one of the dudes read my t-Shirt which reads "RECESSION is when your neighbor loses his job. DEPRESSION is when you lose yours. RECOVERY is when Obama loses his" Yeah I know - (LOL!) you should have seen their faces.The guy who read it realized what it said and he shook his head and began his ad-hominem arguments against me. I said, hey I have some material I can share with you if you are an open-minded person who believes that conversations are a two-way street but he said he didn't want to hear anything which might contradict his ideas. He said I must be being payed by the Koch brothers - and working for Billionaires and corporations. I pointed out that it was the Democrats who spent twice as much as Republicans in their attempt to thwart and re-do the elections they lost in Wisconsin. I said its the limolibs who have the money and who want to force people to serve their agenda. I told him about my blog but he moved on to other accusations. He said "you probably don't even believe in climate change" and at this point others were starting to gather and listen to our "discussion" and one sandal-wearing bypasser tapped him on the shoulder and said, in a somber tone, "I believe its happening." I said, so do I, its been happening for millenia!

I said that environmental regulations are a socialist ploy to give government more control over the economy and our lives - I would have recommended him to read Dr. George Reisman's essay "The Toxicity of Environmentalism" which names individuals on the left who are on record as advocating that the environmental movement should manipulate information in order to advance their agenda but instead I argued that Socialism doesn't work.

I said look man it doesn't help the poor look at this economy versus the economy under president Reagan.

I said, its wealthy people who are behind this nonsense. I don't need my freedom to be encroached upon just because other people have more money than I do. It reminds me of that Margaret Thatcher YOUTUBE on Socialism where she points out that it doesn't matter to socialists that their policies cause more poverty, they are more outraged that some people have more than others even as those who have less would benefit more scientifically and materially from the free enterprise system which allows people to build their own fortunes.

Well, I'm a "sinner" because I believe that freedom works in an economy and advanced and mature civilization while they believe in the nanny state and the infantile and dependent citizen.

I was "accused" of looking like a Tea Party organizer... I paused and thought for a moment about where he was going with that. I mean I'm just getting started, so I told him, actually I'm kind of new at that. I told him that I wanted to explain why I would be proud to be a Tea Party organizer but he told me to go away and he didn't want to hear anything, although he was set up in a public area, ostensibly to try to convince people about the merits of his cause.

People were listening in and nobody except one or two picked up free leftwing-slogan bearing bumper stickers from his table. I told him that his antipathy towards business and free enterprise was misguided because the results of anticapitalist policies and socialism has shown its ugly resutls. I believe that I observed some part of him recognize that possibility, which didn't make him very happy. So I backed off and said "peace, right, peace?" and gave him the bunny-ears peace sign with my hand. No I didn't flip him the bird, but I saw that he was not interested in an actual discussion or evaluation of arguments and information.